1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an optical device, and more particularly to an optical head which can precisely focus a light spot on an optical memory disk and has a high S/N ratio.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A high-performance focusing grating coupler fabricated by electron-beam writing is described by T. Suhara et al. in Technical Digest of Seventh Topical Meeting on Integrated and Guided-Wave Optics, ThD4; Florida, U.S.A., Apr. 24-26 (1984). Further, an integrated optical photodetector is disclosed by D. B. Ostrowsky et al. in Appl. Phys. Lett. Vol. 22, No. 9, 1973, p. 463.
FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of an optical head which is integrated electro-optically according to the prior art. A substrate 1 is provided with a buffer layer 2 on which an optical waveguide layer 3 of a dielectric is formed. The buffer layer 2 can be formed by oxidation, evaporation or the like, while the waveguide layer 3 can be formed by evaporation, sputtering or the like. Beam splitters 5 and a focusing grating coupler 6 are fabricated on the waveguide layer 3 by photolithography or a combination of electron beam writing and plasma etching. The optical head is further provided with a semiconductor laser 4 and photodetectors 10.
In operation, laser beams 7 are injected into the waveguide layer 3 from the semiconductor laser 4. The laser beams 7 transmitted through the waveguide 3 are focused on an optical memory disk 8 by the focusing grating coupler 6 and make a focused light spot 12. After reading a signal pit 9 on the disk 8 by the focused light spot 12, light beams 13 reflected from the disk 8 are again introduced into the waveguide layer 3 by the focusing grating coupler 6. Each of these laser beams introduced back into the waveguide 3 is bisected by the beam splitter 5 and then the bisected beams 15 change their direction at 30.degree. oppositely. One set of the bisected beams 15 converges toward one set of photodetectors 10 which are situated near to one side of the semiconductor laser 4, while the other set of the bisected beams 15 converges toward another set of photodetectors 10 which are situated near to the other side of the semiconductor laser 4. These convergent beams 15 are efficiently converted into electrical signals by the respective photodetectors 10.
Since the waveguide layer 3 is also formed between the semiconductor laser 4 and the photodetectors 10 in the electro-optically integrated head of FIG. 1, there may exist the so-called stray beams 16 which are emitted divergently from the semiconductor laser 4 and are directly incident upon the photodetectors 10. These stray beams 16 cause noise in the output of photodetectors 10 and thus lower the S/N ratio of the optical head.
Further, in order to efficiently and properly inject laser beams from the semiconductor laser 4 into the waveguide layer 3, the semiconductor laser 4 should be set in place with a high accuracy in assembling the optical head.